


Between Flowers and Sex Toys

by warren_space



Category: The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: Amos Has Feelings Too, Canon-typical References to Prostitution, Casual Sex, Denial, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Minor Jim Holden/Naomi Nagata, Open Relationships, Pining, Rough Sex, Treating Each Other Badly, Unrequited Love, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:06:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25687786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warren_space/pseuds/warren_space
Summary: Holden and Amos are not having sex. They just put their dicks in each other, every once in a while. It's not a whole thing. Until it is.
Relationships: Amos Burton/Jim Holden, Camina Drummer/Naomi Nagata (mentioned), Jim Holden/Naomi Nagata (mentioned)
Comments: 56
Kudos: 187





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I tried my best with Lang Belta but some of it is canon and some of it is is made up based on a mixture of canon Belter suffixes and Spanish words I modified the spelling of, like poya = polla and conyo = coño. Can you believe there's no easily found documentation of how to say cock and pussy in Belter? I also made up beshang to mean kiss by combining the Spanish verb besar with pashang which means fuck. I know there are resources to learn Belter but that seemed like an insane thing to do to write a tiny scene in a fanfic.

If you asked him, Holden wouldn’t say that he and Amos were _having sex._ He’d argue that the present participle _having_ implies a pattern, an ongoing and regular thing, like some kind of relationship, which was absolutely not what was happening. They _had sex,_ sure, in sporadic intervals, when one or both of them needed to blow of a little steam. It was an arrangement, if anything. Less than that, even. It was just a couple of happenstances strung together at random, like natural disasters— unplanned, unpredictable, and more often than not, violent. In Holden’s world, people who are _having sex_ kiss each other on the lips, sleep in each other’s beds, maybe even make each other breakfast after. People who are _having sex_ don’t pretend it never happened as soon as it’s over. They don’t rinse the memory away in the shower, watch it pool around the drain until it swirls into the recycler and turns into the water they drink. 

“Ew, dude,” Amos said as Holden told him this, choosing that detail of all things to complain about. “Rule number one of life on a spaceship: don’t talk about where the water comes from. That’s, like, Spaceship Etiquette 101.” Holden put his cock back in Amos’s mouth, and the big man took it willingly, despite his performative eye-roll. 

“You’ll guzzle my come like you’re starving for it, but you draw the line at drinking sterilized bathwater, like everyone else in outer space,” Holden accused, a statement more than a question, as he bucked his hips with crescendoing harshness that silenced any defense. Amos just shrugged with his hands and took Holden deeper, suppressing his gag reflex expertly as he brought Holden closer to orgasm. He welcomed the roughness. He’d get Holden back for it later, and they’d both enjoy it even as they pretended not to. He tugged on Holden’s balls, a little rougher than would be pleasant. 

“Okay, old man,” said Amos when his jaw got tired, flicking the space between Holden’s balls and asshole. Holden flinched, and forced his way back into Amos’s mouth, the head of his cock brushing against the back of his throat before he pulled it straight back out. “Hurry it up before I start using teeth, I got shit to do.” 

“You pulled your boss into the machine shop in the middle of the day to suck cock when you’ve got work to do?” Holden asked as he slapped Amos’s face with his length, leaving splatters of precome in his sideburns and beard. Amos didn’t appear to mind. 

“You put your dick down your mechanic’s throat in the middle of the workday and you got complaints about my productivity?”

“Guess not.” 

“Didn’t think so, _boss,”_ Amos mocked. Holden was hardly his boss on the job, preferring to regard everyone as a co-owner, let alone in bed. They were equals, or at the very least, they took turns being in charge. Amos would not be on his knees if Holden hadn’t been in the same place just a few minutes earlier. But it was Holden’s turn, so he took control, lacing his fingers in the hair at the nape of Amos’s neck and pulled him back down, using Amos’s stoic face like it was nothing but an instrument for his own pleasure, until his come spilled from the corners of those plush lips. 

He came down from the high of orgasm with a smirk on his lips, until Amos spat the load in his face. His smirk made the instant transition to a grimace. 

“What the fuck, dude?!” Holden complained, wiping the back of his palm over his lips and chin to scrub himself of the evidence as he stood. 

“You look better covered in come,” offered Amos by way of explanation, with an unapologetic shrug of his shoulders.

“Yeah? You look better with your face in a pillow and a cock in your ass,” Holden rebutted. 

“Yeah, right,” Amos laughed, a rough sound with no real amusement behind it. “When’s the last time you fucked me in a bed?” 

“What, you wanna cuddle after, princess?” Holden tucked himself away and zipped his coveralls, and it was like the TV channel changed from a porno to a sit-com. 

“Nah, you smell bad enough this close,” Amos jeered. Holden flipped him off, and Amos returned the jab with a wet willy. The childish back-and-forth diverged into even-more-childish wrestling, until the two were all sprawled limbs and panting breaths, and not in a sexy way. 

“Okay, uncle, uncle. Get back to work,” said Holden. Amos licked a stripe up his neck and jaw like a dog before letting him up, and Holden left to shower as Amos continued the neglected repair. 

#### ★ ★ ★

They weren’t _having sex,_ insisted Holden to himself as the water crashed over his shoulders and trickled down his back and legs, hot enough to scald his pale skin pink. If they were _having sex,_ Holden wouldn’t have to imagine what Amos looked like completely naked under him, instead of half-clothed and bent over the furniture, or fully-dressed save for an unzipped fly. If they were _having sex,_ Holden wouldn’t have to imagine what Amos’s skin felt like pressed fully against his own, two sweaty bodies moving together like they belonged, instead of one using the other like a fleshlight, then returning the favor. If they were _having sex,_ Holden wouldn’t be massaging the soapy pads of his fingertips along his own rim, wondering what Amos’s breath felt like ghosting against his hole, taking his time prepping him on his tongue and fingers until he was ready and begging to be filled. 

But they weren’t _having sex._ Instead, whenever Amos decided there was room in his schedule to fool around, Holden got two calloused fingers lubed hastily and stuffed inside him, a hand clapped over his mouth to muffle his moans, and a half-assed ‘you ready?’ before a fat cockhead pressed him open. 

Holden had no right to complain. He liked the way Amos treated him, like a tissue to be disposed of after a single use. Besides, Holden treated Amos the same way. Such was their arrangement— two people borrowing each other, getting off, and then pretending nothing happened. And if, when it was over, Holden made a habit of standing under the hot spray of the shower imagining what it could be like if they gave each other just a little bit more, then Amos didn’t have to know that. 

#### ★ ★ ★

A wolf-whistle, sounding muffled through the speaker of a comm, signaled to Holden as he entered his quarters that Naomi was on a video call. He tightened the towel around his waist and rolled his eyes, with nothing but love. 

“Hi, Camina,” he greeted. The tiny picture smiled at him, a cocksure press of lips with a raised eyebrow that gave the Belter an air of dominance. 

“How go my favorite cuckold?” she said instead of a greeting. Naomi giggled. 

“We’ve been through this, Drummer,” said Holden. “I’m only a cuckold if you let me watch.” Drummer’s smile brightened as she shook her head. 

“What that make you then, Jimmy? Third wheel, ke?” He groaned at the nickname, a name only his parents called him, but the way she said it was secretly growing on him. He hadn’t loved hearing the familial nickname from someone who wasn’t family. But it was becoming clear, as time passed and they got closer, that Drummer _was_ family. He could allow it. 

“I prefer ‘adoring boyfriend who wants the love of his life to have everything she needs and more,’” he said, looking at Naomi and not the screen. She smiled. It wasn’t lip-service. He was happy to share Naomi, and felt no jealousy about the relationship between Drummer and Naomi, even though it didn’t include him. He loved Camina, though there was nothing romantic or sexual about that love. Holden didn’t like to call himself a ‘sister-wife,’ but the shoe fit. 

“Cute, _tumang,”_ Drummer pulled his attention back to the hand terminal. “It have nothing to do with little crush on big cock Hulk man?” Holden looked at Naomi, who shrugged innocently with her hands. 

“I don’t have a _crush_ on Amos,” Holden insisted. 

“But im know who I mean, _keya?”_ she insinuated to Naomi, who was smiling the way she always did when her two loves bickered fondly, like her heart was too big for her chest. Naomi’s love was so strong it could be stretched and contorted without bending or breaking, shared between two lovers but never muddled. Naomi loved Holden and Drummer, separately and together, equally and differently. Sometimes, times like this, Holden wanted to love Amos like that. But Amos could never want that, so Holden could never say he did. 

“I don’t have a crush on… big cock Hulk man,” Holden said, not knowing if he was trying to convince Drummer, Naomi, or himself. 

_“Mi pochuye,_ Jimmy,” said Drummer, knowingly. _I understand,_ Holden translated with his minimal knowledge of Belter. “What’s the word, Nagata? Denial?” she asked, knowing the word full well. She always dumbed it down for Holden, and he suspected it was more to make fun of him than to help him understand what she was trying to say. When it was just her and Naomi, they spoke Belter lightning fast.

“Go easy on him, darling,” Naomi warned, “Amos is not an easy man to fall in love with.” 

“I’m not in love with…” Holden started, and then decided there was no point in arguing. He kneeled on the bed, then fell flat onto Naomi’s pillow. 

“Poor Jimmy,” Drummer said. 

“Yeah,” Holden agreed, lying prone, inhaling the sweet smell of Naomi on her pillowcase. “Poor Jimmy.” 

“Aw,” she cooed, only partially sarcastic. “How ‘bout Nagata show you titties, make feel better, _ke?”_

“You just want to see my tits,” Naomi accused, pretending to be scandalized even as she gave an amused smile.

“Always, _setara mali mi.” My love,_ or something like it. Maybe _darling._ “But this for the _poyawala.”_ That, he couldn’t translate. He recognized the suffix _‘-wala’_ from some derogatory terms he knew, but didn’t know the direct translation. It didn’t sound like a nice word, but he knew it was meant gently. Drummer liked to tease him, like an older sister, though he believed her to be younger than him. An older-younger sister-friend who was fucking his girlfriend. There wasn’t really a word for it. Maybe she knew one in Belter. 

“Please don’t call my boyfriend ‘the cocklover,’” said Naomi, though she was smiling. Holden laughed into the pillow as he learned the meaning of the word. 

“Im love cock, no?” Drummer defended. She wasn’t wrong. 

“He doesn’t call you _conyowala.”_

“Could.” 

“Is ‘conyo,’ pussy?” Holden picked his head up to ask. 

“Yes, Jimmy. Pussy.” 

“Can’t I be _conyowala,_ too?” 

“How ‘bout _owala?”_ Drummer suggested, delivering the insult with a smirk, but without ill-intent. 

“That’s like fucker, right?” 

“Literally it’s more like ‘hole lover,’” said Naomi. Also not wrong, technically, but not exactly a pretty thing to be called. Suitable, however, for his fluid sexual tendencies. 

“Inya-baby need lessons,” Drummer said like a scold in Holden’s direction. 

“What, Belter Curses 101?” he questioned. 

“Ya, _dzhemang.”_ He knew the suffix ‘-mang’ meant something like ‘man,’ but ‘dzhe’ could be anything. 

“What does that mean?” Holden asked. 

“You find out,” she said cheekily. _“Mi gonya go. Oyedeng, poyawala,” Goodbye, cocklover. “Mi du amolof to,_ Nagata.” _I love you._ When she hung up, Holden looked at Naomi for the answer.

 _“Dzhemang_ kind of means ‘dick.’ 

“Kind of?”

“Literally, it’s like, man with a crooked penis? But no one uses it like that. It’s just another insult like pashangwala or owala. Got a lotta ways to say ‘fucker,’ us.” 

“Right.”

“She meant it lovingly, though. Likes you.” 

“Has a funny way of showing it.” 

“Kind of like you and Amos?” She wasn’t wrong, but Holden didn’t want to think about it anymore. 

“I don’t want to talk about Amos.” 

“Okay, _poyawala,”_ she teased playfully, crawling into their bed and curling up next to him. 

“Nah, what’s Belter for ‘Naomi-lover’?” 

“Cheesy, Inya-baby,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. 

“Fine, fine. What’s Belter for ‘kiss me’?” 

_“Tu wanya beshang wit mi, ke?”_

_“Beshang?”_

_“Ya,”_ Naomi confirmed. 

_“Tu wanya…”_ She kissed him.

Holden stopped thinking about Amos. For a little while. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I have to say this, but, uh... if you don't like fanfiction in which The Expanse's Jim Holden and Amos Burton have sex with each other, please do not read this fanfiction in which The Expanse's Jim Holden and Amos Burton have sex with each other, and then leave a comment that you do not enjoy fanfiction in which The Expanse's Jim Holden and Amos Burton have sex with each other. Thanks!

Holden was in an especially pissy mood after a frustrating phone call with Fred Johnson. Amos, who somehow always managed to know what Holden needed before Holden did, clapped a big hand on his back as he bent forlornly over a bulb of coffee, and gave him a cheeky smile. 

“How about you let me give that mouth something to do other than drink caffeine and scowl?” proposed Amos. Holden sighed, and suppressed the instinct to look overjoyed. It had been too long since he succumbed to the walking temptation that called itself the Roci’s mechanic. He’d been pining like a schoolchild for barely short of a month, and his own fingers had stopped cutting it for him after a week, tops. He wished Amos asked more often. Moreso, Holden wished he, himself, had the courage to ask at all. 

“Sure, why not,” Holden feigned ambivalence, and followed Amos at a leisurely pace to the machine shop. 

Most of the sex they had happened in the machine shop. Holden hadn’t really been part of that decision-making process, but he figured it was because it was for all intents and purposes an Alex-free zone. The only other spaces that afforded them any level of privacy were their own quarters, and there was something a little too familiar about having sex in each other’s beds. So what ended up happening, nine times out of ten, was someone got bent over a workbench and fucked within an inch of his life. 

There wasn’t a lot of preamble. Amos usually gave him a blank look that meant either ‘get on your knees,’ ‘bend over the table,’ or ‘how do you want me?’ and Holden got to decide which one. This time, Holden instructed Amos to sit as he sunk to his knees, and Amos generously pulled his cock out for him. Holden sucked kisses into the underside until it grew from hardening to hard. Amos cradled his jaw in his big hand, used his thumb to force Holden’s mouth open, and spat in it. 

“Gross, fuck,” Holden complained, spitting back up at Amos. The mess splattered over his abs and Amos laughed. “Can’t you behave yourself for at least the duration of a blowjob?”

“You can swallow my come but not my spit?” 

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly thrilled about swallowing your come, either,” Holden lied. 

“That’s alright,” Amos cooed, the warmth in his voice more mockery than consolation. “You don’t have to like it.” Holden laughed at that, presuming it was a joke, though there was no humor in the delivery. 

“How gracious of you,” Holden deadpanned. Amos smirked and guided Holden’s head onto his cock. Despite his attitude, Amos was usually a little more careful with Holden than Holden was with Amos. His dick was bigger, and Holden was less experienced with deep-throating than he was, so Holden was grateful for the courtesy. Sure, sometimes Amos choked him, bucked up into his mouth and made him take it, but he never applied pressure longer than Holden could handle it, and for the most part, let him manage on his own. It spoke volumes about their arrangement that Holden was thankful to only be brutalized some of the time. He sucked Amos down as deep as he could take him, and jerked at the base with a tight, twisting grip. 

“Good little cocksucker, Captain. Where’d you learn to take cock this good?” Holden pulled away just long enough to speak. 

“Your mom taught me,” he quipped before thinking about who he was talking to. Amos huffed an affronted laugh. 

“Yeah,” Amos said. “Sounds like her.” Holden didn’t know if that was a joke. He didn’t even know if Amos had a mom. 

“Sorry, that was…”

“‘Salright, Cap. Gonna take more than a ‘your mom’ joke to offend me.”

“Still, I’m—” Amos silenced him by pushing his head down, and Holden let his apology go unheard. He didn’t have an excuse for it, anyway. He let his lips and tongue around Amos’s cock do the apologizing for him, and figured Amos’s satisfied moans indicated some level of forgiveness. 

“So, are you getting fucked this time, or me?” Amos changed the subject. 

“Your turn,” Holden said when Amos let him. Amos squinted at that. 

“I didn’t know we were keeping score,” he said. Holden couldn’t tell what he thought about that. 

“Fair’s fair, right?” Holden excused, because of course he couldn’t admit to wanting Amos inside him all of the time. Switching felt more casual. 

“Sure. How do you want me?” Amos asked as he stood up to shuck his clothes off, save for his tank top. Holden allowed himself to admire the bulging muscles of Amos’s tattooed arms for just a moment, then signaled with a head-tilt for the big man to bend over. 

It always felt a little bit surreal, how easily Amos obeyed. A man of his strength and size could throw Holden with the ease of tossing a softball, yet he chose to go easily wherever Holden asked. Holden wasn’t the kind of man who got off on having power over someone, but it warmed his heart to be trusted by the guy. He felt privileged to get to see Amos vulnerable. He knew it was a sight few people got to see. 

He savored the view for as long as he felt he could get away with, sliding his palms up the backs of Amos’s thick thighs and over his round ass. Amos was built sturdy, even for an Earther, and there was something exotic about that to Holden, who’d become accustomed to something so different. He didn’t like to compare Amos to Naomi, but the contrast was blatant. Everywhere Naomi was long and thin, graceful and avian, Amos was stocky and unbreakable, inelegant, but cocky in his crassness. They were opposite ends of a spectrum, both perfect to Holden in their own right. 

“You lose interest back there?” Amos asked. Fuck. Holden must’ve been staring for too long. He couldn’t help himself. He didn’t get this opportunity often, and hated to waste it. 

“Not yet,” he said, hoping it would throw Amos off his scent. 

“Better hurry then.” 

Holden splayed his palms over Amos’s asscheeks and spread them, one thumb teasing over the rim of his hole. He did something weird. 

“Did you just kiss my asshole?” Amos asked, after. 

“Uh…” said Holden, his breath against Amos’s rim affirming it for him. 

“Holy shit. Yeah, okay. Lick me.”

“I don’t know…” 

“Fucking eat my ass, Captain,” Amos demanded, and it was jarring to hear it meant literally. Holden took the permission and ran with it, licking and sucking enthusiastically, like given a gift that he knew would be taken away too soon. “Good boy.”

“I’m not a dog.”

“Says the guy with his tongue in my ass. Lick, puppy.” Holden rolled his eyes and spat on Amos’s hole. Then, he tried to recall an instance in his life in which sex involved this much spitting. He couldn’t. 

“You got lube?” 

“In my toolbox.”

“Why do you keep lube in your toolbox?” 

“Because your dick’s not quite small enough to fit inside me without it.”

“That’s not what I— Never mind.” Holden got the lube and coated his fingers in it, pausing to kiss and lick at Amos’s rim for just a little while longer before he slipped a finger inside. 

“You like licking my hole?” Amos asked once two fingers moved easily inside him. 

“It’s not as awful as I thought it would be.”

“Wow, high praise,” he said to Holden. Then, to himself: “bitch acts like he didn’t do that shit without bein’ asked.” 

“...Shuddup,” grumbled Holden, too mesmerized by the curve of Amos’s body underneath him to come up with anything more witty. He added his ring finger alongside his scissoring pointer and middle digits. Amos could take his cock easily after only two, but Holden wanted to draw the process out. Amos let Holden take his time. 

Holden took his coverall off completely, instead of just unzipping it far enough to take his cock out. He was almost naked, same as Amos, save for their undershirts. It felt like a monumental gesture to Holden, to be more naked than he had to be. As he fucked Amos, slow and then fast, grinding and then thrusting, gentle and then brutal, he wished for the millionth time he could feel Amos’s body fully-naked against his own. 

Holden lasted as long as he could, postponing completion with a finger and thumb squeezing around the base of his dick like a cockring, until the pleasure of Amos’s tightness around his length was too much to handle. He made Amos come with a firm reach-around grip, and reveled in the tightness as the body under him tensed. Holden came shortly thereafter with a broken moan, all desperation and pleasure, and there was no pretending not to like it. 

There was always a moment, after the sex ended and before the banter began again, that felt to Holden a little like Purgatory. As their hard cocks softened post-orgasm, Holden and Amos floated in the space between coworkers and sex partners. He sat on the bench, his bare ass on cold metal, and cursed the machismo or insecurity or whatever the hell it was that was keeping them from doing it in a real bed. He wanted to feel Amos’s arms around him under warm covers as they basked in the afterglow of incredible sex. 

Amos sat next to Holden, and looked at him like he was waiting for something. Holden didn’t know what it could possibly be. 

“That was,” Holden started, then couldn’t decide on an adjective.  _ Hot. Amazing. Mind-blowing. Not enough.  _ “Good. You are…”  _ Gorgeous. Breath-taking. Perfect. My best friend. Everything to me.  _ “Good.” 

“Thanks,” responded Amos distantly. It hadn’t been the right thing to say. There was quiet for a little while. Neither of them spoke, but neither of them moved to get dressed or leave. Amos eventually broke the silence. “I can’t believe you put your tongue in my asshole,” he said, almost smiling. Holden could believe it. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about it. He was only surprised to learn he had the courage to actually try it. 

“Let’s not talk about it.” 

“‘Was hot,” Amos shrugged. Holden agreed but didn’t say so. He said nothing. 

They got dressed without talking. Usually, that would be the end of the conversation. Holden was just about on his way out the door when Amos did something unprecedented.

“Hey, uh. You wanna, like, grab a beer and watch a movie?” Amos asked. Holden turned around to face him, sure that his confusion and surprise were written on his face. His brow furrowed. 

“Like, a date?” he asked. His mind said  _ please be yes _ while his expression said  _ please be no. _

“Like two guys watching a movie and drinking beer,” denied Amos.  _ Right,  _ Holden thought,  _ Obviously not.  _

Holden hesitated. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to be close to Amos on the couch, warm and cozy, sipping cold beer as a movie projected into the air and lit the personnel deck up in changing colors. He wanted to put his head, or maybe his feet, in Amos’s lap, an almost-casual touch that anchored their bodies together. He wanted it to be a date. 

But it wasn’t. He wanted it to be, and it wasn’t. He was terrified by the prospect of having to pretend for the duration of a movie that he didn’t need to be close to Amos like he needed to breathe. He pictured sitting a meter’s distance apart, stealing glances only when he knew Amos wasn’t looking, drinking beer after beer after beer until the pain dissolved into drunkenness. Holden didn’t trust himself not to ruin everything if he drank even enough to let his guard down for a second. And abstaining from the alcohol would be both suspicious and agonizing. So he said no to the proposal, though every nerve ending in his body screamed yes. 

“Uh,” Holden floundered. Amos nodded, looking like he didn’t care either way. 

“Gotcha.” 

“I just... I gotta shower, and it’s my turn to cook,” Holden excused. “Maybe after dinner the four of us can pick something out? When’s the last time we had a family movie night?” It was a rejection. A consolation prize. But if Naomi and Alex were there to be a buffer, he could probably handle three hours of being close to Amos. Probably. 

“Yeah, sounds good.” 

Holden showered, and fantasized about kissing Amos alone on the couch while a movie played. 

####  ★ ★ ★

When dinner had long come and gone and the movie was over, Holden lay wrapped up in Naomi’s arms, somewhere between tipsy and shitfaced, moping with his head on her chest. She giggled at the intoxicated petulance as his sighing breath tickled her skin.

“Why is it,” Naomi pondered aloud, “that you and Amos talk to each other like you can’t stand to be in the same room, but then when you think the other’s not looking, you look at each other like you can’t stand to be apart?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Holden protested, the sound muffled. Naomi took his face in her hands lovingly and made him look at her. 

“What are you afraid of? Amos is crazy about you,” she insisted. Holden scoffed. 

“Amos isn’t crazy about me. If anything, Amos tolerates me because if he wants to get off, and his choices are fucking my mouth or being alone with his own hand for months at a time.” 

“You’re so blind. He was trying to get close to you all night tonight.” 

“Is that what you’d call it? He was trying to put his toes in my mouth.” 

“Would you have let him hold your hand?” 

“Fuck, no. Alex was right there.” 

“Alex was half asleep half the time, and snoring the other half. You could’ve been naked in his lap and it wouldn’t register.” 

“That would be less weird than holding his hand.” Holden ignored the roll of Naomi’s eyes. “Besides, I still don’t see how rubbing his feet in my beard tells you what he really wants is to hold my hand.” 

“He wants to touch you. A reminder you’re there, and real. Same reason he’s always patting your back and slapping your knee, or touching your face and neck.”

“You’re too romantic. I love you for it, but it doesn’t apply here.”

“My love, you’ve always been the romantic one, not me. I don’t get how you don’t see that he wants to feel close to you. Connected.”

“He’s touchy, that doesn’t mean anything.”

“He’s not. When I met him, he didn’t touch anyone, and got violent if anyone touched him. He’s still unsettled in crowds, or whenever someone casually taps or bumps him. On the  _ Cant, _ I was the only one who could get close enough to touch him, and only after years of working together. He’s not touchy. He wants to touch  _ you.” _ Holden pondered that, then shook his head. If Naomi saw the way they were together in the machine shop, she’d know that couldn’t be true. 

“Don’t… don’t. Please.”

“Don’t tell you the truth?” she asked. He contorted his face in frustration. 

“Don’t get my hopes up. It’s always going to be just sex for him. I have to be okay with that, or I don’t get to be close to him at all.” Naomi looked sympathetically into his forlorn eyes, wide and childish. 

“I’m sure he thinks the same thing about you.”

“Good! That’s what I want him to think! He can’t know I want more if he doesn’t want more. That would ruin everything.” 

“And what if he does want more, but is hiding it for the same reason you are?” she asked. Holden shook his head violently. 

“Not likely. Not possible. He’s a crass asshole to me every chance he gets.” 

“He’s a crass asshole to everyone. It’s a front. You, on the other hand, are polite enough to everyone else, and only ever a crass asshole when you’re talking to him. That can’t feel good.” 

“I promise you, he’s not thinking twice about it.” 

“Whatever you say, darling.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> angst

The next time Amos and Holden hooked up was a couple weeks later. Amos initiated it, as he always did. 

“Hey, Cap,” he said, approaching Holden where he was sitting at the galley table. “I need your help with something in the machine shop,” he stated, no insinuation in his voice, and tilted his head in the right direction.

“You need my help in engineering?” questioned Holden, oblivious to the intended proposition, “is Naomi busy?”

“Oh, I’m sure she could manage much better than you can,” Amos leered. “Unfortunately, I doubt she’s interested.” Holden caught on. “Come on, I got tools that need handling.”

“That’s… not subtle,” said Holden. 

“Right, see, subtlety ain’t exactly my strong suit. How’s this: Cap, it’s been a while since you choked on my cock, and I think we’re due for a playdate.” 

“Maybe we need some kind of a code word,” Holden suggested, going for a light-hearted joke, though his dick was already stirring in his pants. 

“How about when I pull my cock out, that’s code for get on your knees or bend the fuck over?” The words were harsh, but the tone was amicable as ever, and Amos was smiling almost pleasantly. Holden rolled his eyes, but got up from his seat and followed as Amos walked smugly toward the shop. 

“Why is it that you become extra shitty to me when you want your dick sucked? Seems backwards. Shouldn’t you be nicer?” Amos just shrugged as he walked. 

“What, you want roses?” 

“There’s no middle ground between buying me flowers and treating me like your own personal sex toy?” Holden challenged. Amos stopped once he got to his destination and shook his head. 

“Don’t be silly, Captain,” he said as he unzipped Holden’s coverall unceremoniously. Holden allowed Amos to pull the garment over his shoulders, and he stepped out of it as soon as it fell to the floor. “A sex doll wouldn’t make me return the favor.” 

“Right,” Holden processed as he shucked his undershirt but left his boxers untouched. “So… worse than a sex doll would be. Nice to know where I stand.” 

“Come on, it’s not like I bully you or nothing,” Amos defended, pulling Holden’s boxers to his ankles and turning the captain around like moving furniture. He gave Holden’s shoulder blade a push, a wordless command to bend over, and the captain cooperated. “Besides, I recall not too long ago I sucked you off and you spent the whole time rambling about how what we do together is literally less than sex.” Holden recalled the conversation. Or, maybe ‘conversation’ wasn’t the right word for a thoughtless monologue he gave while he pushed himself down Amos’s throat, but he recalled the instance being referenced. It was weeks ago, and they’d had sex once since. Holden hadn’t given the soliloquy a single thought, not before, during, or after its delivery. As he remembered distantly the things he said, he felt like a monster for saying them. How soulless was he, that he could lie so easily, and say what they did meant nothing? How heartless was he, that he could say that to Amos’s face, even as he fucked it? He never meant to imply he didn’t care about Amos. He just couldn’t let Amos know  _ how much  _ he really did care. He was too afraid of losing what they had. 

“That’s not what I—” Holden was silenced by a lubed finger pressing inside him without notice. He hadn’t even heard the click of the lube bottle opening, or the squelching sound of Amos squeezing it onto his hand. “Fuck, warn a guy.” Amos ignored him, fucking him on one finger until he opened easily for another. Holden moaned into the pleasure despite himself, and his rebuttal was lost. 

“I ain’t offended by it. I know where I stand. I’m just the holes you come in and then go shower away the shame. Ain’t a big thing. You want another finger or can I put it in you?” 

“Wait, what?” Holden stopped him, tensing. Amos had to at least know Holden regarded him as more than a tool to get off. Amos had to know what their friendship meant to him, even if he couldn’t know he wanted more than that. 

“My cock,” Amos explained impatiently, knowing that wasn’t the point Holden needed clarifying. 

“No, I know what you meant by ‘it,’ thank you. You think you’re nothing but a couple of holes to me?” 

“Is that a ‘no’ on a third finger?” Amos ignored the question. Holden turned around, earning a disappointed eye roll from Amos as his fingers were forced to fall from Holden’s ass. “You really wanna have this conversation now?” Amos asked, stroking himself lazily as if to emphasize that ‘now’ meant ‘while I’m hard.’ 

“If we have a problem, we should solve it before it gets worse,” Holden explained, though his own erection didn’t flag. 

“We don’t have a problem. You get off on using me, and I don’t mind bein’ used. Why fix what ain’t broken?” Amos snaked his arm around Holden’s backside to squeeze his ass, a shoddy attempt to return to normalcy, but Holden shrugged off the advance and crossed his arms. He felt suddenly exposed, as if he hadn’t been naked the whole time. 

“I don’t get off on using you,” Holden grumbled, though he didn’t have a better explanation for what the hell they were doing together. It would be more accurate to say Holden got off on being used  _ by _ Amos, but even that was a far cry from the whole truth. 

“Then, what? You’re in love with me or something?” 

“No.” 

“Okay. Good talk. Bend over.” Holden wanted to argue further, but had nothing to say. He knew the delicate balance they’d found together hinged on Amos’s ignorance to Holden’s feelings. As soon as the big guy got a whiff of what Holden really wanted from him, he’d run for the hills. So instead of telling Amos that he wanted so much more than hastily exchanged favors every couple of weeks, he bent over and took whatever Amos was willing to give him. “Fucking good boy.” 

“I hate it when you call me—” Amos clapped his hand over Holden’s mouth to quiet his complaint as he bucked harder into him. Holden licked Amos’s palm with a broad stroke of his wet tongue, and Amos smacked him across the face for it. It was a gentle slap, softened by the difficult angle, but the point was made. Amos dug his fingertips mercilessly into the meat of the pale thigh underneath him and maneuvered Holden’s leg up onto the table. He pulled out before he was finished, soliciting a frustrated groan from Holden, to admire the sloppy hole that winked in his absence. Amos spit on Holden’s entrance and rubbed the slickness away with his thumb, pressing just the tip of the digit inside. 

“Such a pretty little hole,” Amos marveled. They never really complimented each other during sex. Amos called Holden a good cocksucker every once in a while, but that didn’t really register as praise. They certainly never complimented each other’s appearances, never even indicated aloud they were attracted to one another. Holden typically elected to stay silent as his mind raced with loving reverence for Amos’s gorgeous body. He enumerated in his head an endless list of things he wanted to say, tattoos he wanted to kiss, and expanses of skin he wanted to caress with loving fingertips, but those were intimate things that lovers did, so he didn’t do them. But Amos had praised him, and it sent an electric current through his body that was something beyond erotic. Holden appreciated how pathetic it was that he was swooning under such paltry praise as that, but it didn’t stop him from blushing about it. 

“Would look prettier with your come inside me,” Holden quipped, because he didn’t know how to deal with the thoughts in his head. Amos just hummed. 

“You’re pretty all over,” Amos said, and Holden no longer knew whether he was being complimented or teased. A massive palm slid slowly over the blades of Holden’s shoulders and down his spine, dipping into the valley of his lower back before finding its home once again on the curve of his ass. The gentle, languid caress was topped off with a hard, startling spank, pulling a gasp from Holden’s lips and a breathy chuckle from Amos’s. “You like that, huh?” 

“Please, fuck me,” Holden begged, which was another first. They generally both pretended they’d rather be anywhere else during sex, even though it was abundantly clear that wasn’t true. They definitely did not beg for each other. Demands, they made regularly, but pleas were never exchanged. Amos obliged the request, replacing his hand on Holden’s elevated thigh and guiding his cock back into his hole. Amos reached around and jerked Holden to completion as he bucked his hips with an unbridled wildness. Holden’s moan was part gratitude and part desperation as he rocked back onto Amos’s length and let himself be filled with come.

“You were right,” said Amos, stepping back like to admire his work, his erection waning after spilling but still massive as it hung neglected. “This hole looks real pretty all used.” Holden put his leg down, but Amos didn’t let him stand upright. The big man held him down with a firm hand in the small of his back, Holden’s stomach pressed into the pool of his own come on the table, as Amos’s other hand played in the aftermath of his own orgasm.

“Fuck, too much,” Holden complained, his hole too sensitive to take any more teasing from Amos’s thick fingers. 

“Hush, I’ll stop when I’m done,” he insisted. “If I don’t get to play with this ass for another couple’a weeks, I’m gonna enjoy it while it lasts.” Holden blinked as he processed the implications of that. Amos wanted to fool around more often, but for some reason, unbeknownst to Holden, he was practicing restraint. Holden endured the discomfort of Amos’s toying for a second longer, then stood up and turned around. 

“You can fuck me whenever you want,” he said, grimacing at the tacky mess coating his abdominal muscles, then using his own discarded boxers to clean it. “You only ask every couple of weeks.”

“Yeah, well. You never ask.” If Holden didn’t know better, he’d say Amos sounded hurt by that. He didn’t act hurt, however, wiping his fingers in Holden’s hair and tucking himself back into the sweats he never even took off. 

“Fucking gross, dude. In my hair?” Holden whined. 

“Showertime anyway, right?” asked Amos, acting unaffected. Holden blew out a frustrated breath. 

“So if I shower, I’m implying somehow that I’m ashamed of letting you fuck me, and if I don’t shower, I gotta walk around with your jizz in my ass? And my fucking hair? I smell like your laundry hamper.” 

“You’re not implying shit, brother. I don’t care what you do.” 

“Why don’t you come shower with me, then?” Holden asked, without thinking first. After the initial shock of hearing the impulsive proposal, Amos looked to be considering it. He shook his head. 

“I ain’t fifteen anymore, Cap. Can’t get it up again that quick. Besides, didn’t Naomi lecture you for a fucking week about water conservation the last time you even mentioned the idea of shower sex?”

“Yeah,” he recalled fondly, “she called me spoiled rotten Earther scum, and then said something in Belter that I’m pretty sure the UN qualifies as hate speech.”

“She’s got a point. Water’s a privilege.” 

“Forgive me for breaking rule number one of life on a spaceship, but all the water we use is recycled in perpetuity. I couldn’t waste water if I wanted to, short of throwing buckets of it out the airlock. Besides, two people, one shower? That’s just economical.”

“Something tells me we wouldn’t get a lot of washing done.”

“Fine, forget the shower sex. I’m not ashamed of having sex with you.” 

“We’re not having sex, remember?” Amos snarked. 

“Whatever. Follow me or don’t, I gotta get your splooge out of my hair.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> will they actually fucking talk to each other in this one? find out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for some references to past prostitution, none of which is described in graphic detail.

Holden tilted his head back and let the water pound over his soapy curls. It was his second shower that day, which Naomi would take issue with, until she learned that the alternative was going to sleep next to a man who smelled like sweat and semen. 

Per tradition, he was recalling the events of the sex they’d just had critically in his mind, regretting all the things he said and didn’t say to Amos when he had the chance. He should’ve fought harder to prove Amos was more to him than a body to fuck. He should’ve held Amos’s face in his hands, forced the eye contact the mechanic refused to ever pay him, and told him he meant more than could ever be said. He would never do that. He could never. Instead, he’d continue to sample the meager offerings Amos laid in front of him like food scraps. It had to be better than starving for him. 

He’d been letting the conditioner sit in his hair a lot longer than the bottle prescribed when he heard the shriek of metal rings on a metal rod that signaled the curtain had been pulled open. He instinctively covered his privates, as if there was anyone that would be intruding on his shower that hadn’t seen his junk before. 

Amos lumbered into the shower casually like there was no one else already there, and waited for Holden to do the talking. He didn’t say much.

“Fuck,” Holden exclaimed, a breathy noise that almost went unheard under the hiss of the shower raining over them. He’d never seen Amos fully naked before. He’d seen him topless and he’d seen him bottomless, but both together packed an impact like a punch in the stomach. He was big all over, hulking muscles glistening under the spray of the water. He looked to be chiseled out of stone, like if Michelangelo’s David had tattooed arms and a massive cock. Holden looked at the dick swinging low between Amos’s legs, and recalled a Belter word Drummer taught him nearly two months before.  _ Poyawala. _ Cock-lover. Holden felt the urge to get on his knees and prove how well it suited him. Even limp and lifeless, he wanted to worship it like a holy artifact. He gave into the urge to drag his knuckles over Amos’s abs, a curious caress. Amos swatted his hand away. 

“Just here to shower, Cap. Takin’ you too long,” he moved Holden to have his own turn under the spray. Holden stood mesmerized as Amos soaped up his own body, jealous of the hands that had the privilege of touching him. “Why should you be the only one who gets to wash away the shame?” 

“I’m not ashamed of anything,” Holden protested weakly. “I took a shower because you wiped your cummy, lubey fingers in my hair, asshole.” 

“Yeah? What about last time? Time before that?”

“I—” 

“You fucked me, the last time. Didn’t get messy. Didn’t even get sweaty. Time before that, we didn’t even fuck. Why shower after a blow job?”

“You spat come on my face.” 

“So wash your face. Brush your teeth. You showered for thirty fucking minutes, after you’d already showered in the morning. Same thing time after that.” Holden didn’t know Amos had been paying that close attention. He didn’t know what to feel about the revelation. 

“Is this about wasting water, ‘cause I told you—” 

“Fuck you, dude. Forget it.” The both stood in silence for either five seconds or an hour. “Can you get it up again?” 

“Not for a little while.”

“Fucking useless.” Amos gave himself a perfunctory once-over with soap, more of a gesture than an actual shower, and started to leave. Holden steeled himself. This was his chance to make this right, to say the things he’d always been too cowardly to say. His hair still lathered in conditioner, he turned the faucet off. “You’re not gonna rinse that out?” Amos asked with squinted eyes. 

“Not until we talk,” asserted Holden. Amos said nothing as Holden left the shower and moved to sit, still naked and wet, on the cold floor of the head. Amos rolled his eyes and looked down at him.

“What’s there to talk about?” 

“Can we skip the passive-aggressive bullshit? It’s me, Amos. Us. Aren’t we supposed to be straight with each other?” Holden asked, the picture of hypocrisy.

“Fine,” Amos resigned, sliding reluctantly into place next to Holden on the tile. “Talk.” 

“I am not ashamed of what we do together.” 

“So you’ve said.” 

“You don’t believe me.” Amos sighed, a frustrated motor-boat sound through closed lips. 

“What’s the saying? Actions speak louder, or some shit?

“Look, I’m sorry if my showering after sex made you feel—”

“I don’t  _ feel _ anything, Holden,” said Amos, though the storm brewing in his eyes told a different story. He looked like he didn’t want to say anything further, but felt the need. “You _ treat me _ like...” he trailed off. He brooded in silence, looking off into the distance for a while, like he didn’t have the words to say or was too ashamed to say them. Holden filled the space. 

“I’m sorry haven’t been nice to you, but you haven’t exactly been nice either,” Holden defended. Amos growled in frustration. 

“I don’t need you to be nice to me. I ain’t asking you to treat me like I’m fragile.” 

“What are you asking for?”

“Respect, for starters?”

“I respect the hell out of you,” said Holden. Amos scoffed like he didn’t believe it, and it broke Holden’s heart into a million pieces. Amos swallowed.

“You don’t act like it. You treat me like I’m dirty. Like fucking me is some horrible chore you have to do. Like being attracted to me is a sin you gotta repent for after. I’ve been fucked by Johns that look at me nicer.” The confession saddened Holden to his core. He hadn’t known the issue ran anywhere near that deep. He suddenly hated himself for everything he’d ever said to Amos. 

“I—” 

“I been treated bad before,” Amos continued. “You get treated as bad as I been, you don’t make a habit of expecting much else. ‘Spart of why I don’t like to fuck people I care about. It gets messy, and people get hurt. Not me, usually, ‘least not anymore, ‘cause, see, I blocked all that shit out a long time ago. I don’t feel pain like I’m supposed to, anymore. But other people get hurt, and I don’t like that, so I don’t go foolin’ with people. There ain’t a lot of people I give a shit about, so I don’t like puttin’ my dick in the ones I do. But I made an exception.”

“Why?” 

“Guess I thought, hey, Jim Fucking Holden is the kindest, most righteous guy I ever met. That man would never, ever treat anybody like I been treated. Plus, you’re real fuckin’ hot. That’s not the main thing, but it’s there. I trusted you. Still do, even if maybe I shouldn’t. I just… I  _ knew _ you wouldn’t treat me bad.” 

“Amos—”

“But here we are. So I gotta figure, maybe the problem’s me. Maybe I’m bein’ a pussy. Or maybe I deserve this shit and just don’t know why.”

“You don’t—” 

“You’re right I don’t. But every time you fuck me like I’m nothing, then shower and pretend it never happened after, I gotta think, I don’t know, maybe I do.” 

“I never meant to treat you like—” 

“A prostitute?” Amos looked at Holden for the first time in a while, and the hurt in his voice spoke to a dark ocean of trauma that Holden couldn’t even begin to understand. He was ashamed he’d never even tried. Holden looked down, unable to meet Amos’s intense gaze. “I got no shame about who I used to be, Cap. But I don't gotta put out for guys who act like my ass is bought and paid for anymore."  


"I never, ever thought of you like—" 

"Then why don’t you ever kiss me?”

_ Why don’t you ever kiss me?  _ The words echoed in Holden’s head, bouncing against the walls of his skull like racketballs in a brick room. He let out a breathy little laugh at the irony, and then couldn’t stop laughing. Holden laughed, wildly and uncontrollably like a madman in a cartoon, like a Batman villain in a straitjacket. He laughed until his stomach hurt from the broken guffaws that were ripped involuntarily from his throat, until it couldn’t be said whether he was laughing or sobbing. Amos stewed in his seat until he couldn’t take the ridicule. He slapped Holden across the face, hard enough to leave a handprint, and Holden regarded it as an act of great mercy and restraint. He knew the alternative was a well-deserved broken nose, or organs spilled on the bathroom floor. Holden took a long while to gather himself. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, cradling his own stinging jaw as he came down from the manic high. “I’m so sorry.” 

“I’m glad my honesty is so funny to you,” said Amos softly. “Next time I’ll keep my mouth shut.” Holden looked at him with so much love in his watering eyes and shook his head. 

“Not that, never that. I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing ‘cause… fuck, Amos, I want to kiss you so bad, it’s all I think about.”

“What?” 

“I stand in the shower after sex like a pathetic, pining loser, regretting that I didn’t have the balls to just fucking kiss you when I had the chance,” he admitted. Amos blinked at him. He scrunched his face up in confusion and stayed silent, like doing a complicated math problem in his head. He shuffled through facial expressions, confusion and then surprise and then pain and then sadness, before settling on something close to relief. Holden just waited patiently and said nothing. 

“That’s why you shower after?” Amos eventually asked, his voice both confused and reassured. Holden nodded. 

“That, and because there’s jizz in my hair, but yeah. Just… to be alone with my regrets.” Amos’s face contorted again, and Holden put a reassuring hand on his knee. “No, I never regret the things I do with you. I just regret the things I didn’t do.” Amos appeared to take some time to understand that. 

“Things like kissing me?” Holden nodded again. 

“Like kissing you,” Holden confirmed. “Like treating you with the respect you damn well deserve. Like being honest with you about how I feel. I know I’ve been an asshole to you. I didn't know how bad it was, but I shouldn't have done it anyway. I’m sorry. I hate it, and I know you deserve better.”

“Then why?”

“I just… I know you don’t want more than sex. And I know I’m the kind of guy who feels too much, too fast. I thought I’d scare you away.” 

“You thought you’d scare me away by accident so you kept me away on purpose?”  _ Well when you say it like that... _

“I never said it was a good plan. I’m sorry. I hate that you could ever think for a second you don’t mean everything to me. I hate that I let you think that for so long.” 

“Yeah, well, apparently I let you think I don’t ever want anything more than sex, so maybe we’re even.” Holden looked at Amos for an elaboration, but it didn’t come. 

“What  _ do _ you want?” 

“I don’t know,” shrugged Amos. “The middle ground between buying you flowers and treating you like a sex toy?” Holden laughed as he understood the reference. 

“Sounds good to me. Though, I don’t know if I mind being your sex toy all that much.” Amos's face lit up.  


“Noted. Finish your shower.” Amos stood up, and Holden followed. 

When Amos turned to leave, Holden took his hand and pulled him back so they were standing face to face. Amos just stared expectantly until Holden stood on his tip-toes and pulled Amos down by the nape of his neck into a hesitant peck on the lips. The look on his face asked ‘is that okay?’ Amos answered by grabbing Holden’s thigh just below his ass and maneuvering him against the wall, kissing back hungrily.

Holden mourned the loss as Amos pulled away. 

“Finish your shower, Cap.”

“I’d rather finish what we started here,” said Holden. 

“We will. In my quarters. You’re gonna fuck me in a goddamn bed for once. See how pretty I look with my face in a pillow.” 

“I like you better when I can look at you,” Holden said, just because he was allowed to. 

“Alright, princess. We’ll see.” Holden kissed Amos again, because he could, and Amos slapped Holden’s ass, because he could. 

Holden rinsed his hair and dried off in record time. 


	5. Chapter 5

Wrapped in a towel, Holden knocked on the door of Amos’s forbidden quarters. Intellectually, he knew that the four-walled cell would be nearly identical to his own, if only a little bit smaller, as it was for the crew and not the captain. But he’d never been allowed to see it before. Amos didn’t allow anyone in his personal space. The illicitness of it all made it feel new and exciting, like the door would slide open and a circus would be raging on inside. 

When Amos allowed the door to slide open, there were no elephants or jugglers, just a plain, unadorned room, with an unmade bed and an undressed mechanic. Suffice it to say, Holden was not fixated on the decor. Amos pulled the towel from Holden’s waist before he closed the door, and Holden tensed under his gaze. 

“Nothing I ain’t seen before, Cap. Or tasted.” 

“Coulda closed the door first,” Holden grumbled. 

“Alex is all the way in the galley making dinner. You’re safe. Your junk has only been seen by two out of three of your crewmates.”

“Right. Good,” Holden said, too distracted to register that that wasn’t quite the reassurance he was looking for. He didn’t think seeing Amos naked would ever get any less alarming. 

“You like what you see?” Amos asked as he clocked Holden staring. It was a cocky thing to ask, but it wasn’t asked in a cocky way. There was genuine vulnerability, insecurity in his delivery that broke Holden’s brain a little bit. The big, beautiful man that stood naked in front of him honestly did not believe that Holden was attracted to him. It was unfathomable. Though, probably easily explained by Holden’s behavior every time they had sex. Holden trailed his hands over Amos’s abs, down the V of his waist, and stopped just before his cock. 

“You are fucking gorgeous, Amos,” Holden said as his hands made their journey. “I’m sorry I couldn’t say that sooner.” 

Amos kissed Holden, pulled him in by the back of his head and crashed their lips together hungrily. Holden responded in kind, standing up on his toes to force himself closer to Amos, whose hand on his ass pulled him up into the kiss. Holden took greedily what Amos offered, kissed like laying claim on something he was owed. He smiled, open-mouthed and breathless, when Amos’s fingers teased over his hole, and begged for more. 

“Fuck,” he breathed between kisses. “Want you so fucking bad.” Amos just hummed a positive reaction and kissed leisurely. “Will you fuck me?” 

“Thought we were taking turns.” 

“Fuck that. Want you in me,” Holden bit gently at Amos’s lower lip, and teased his fingers over Amos’s cock as it stood between them. It was the polar opposite of any interaction they’d ever had. Holden made no effort to conceal his desperation. He acted on every impulse, made his attraction to Amos known at every opportunity. He paid no mind whether he was staring too long, saying the wrong thing, or asking for too much. He received what the big man gave him in abundance, his lips and hands moving on auto-pilot as he overwhelmed his every sense with  _ Amos. _

Something changed in Amos as they kissed, and he pulled away. Holden tried to kiss him again, but he only allowed him a peck before he distanced himself again and sat on his bed. Holden sat next to him. 

“What’s wrong? Did I do something?” 

“No. You’re just… eager,” Amos said with a furrowed brow that looked something like confusion, and Holden’s heart sunk into his stomach. Holden had spent months pretending he wasn't eager. He had thought, after their discussion, that he was allowed to be so. 

“That’s bad?”

“No. I just didn’t realize how hard you’ve been working to pretend you don’t like screwin’ me. Smarts a little, is all.” 

“That’s not fair. I know I haven’t been kind to you, and I’ll be regretting that for the rest of my life. But don’t pretend that you were giving off any kind of signal that you wanted me, any more than I was. How was I supposed to know that you weren’t going to freak out and end it as soon you realized that I’m...”

“Kind of a slut?”

“Into you,” Holden corrected. Amos raised his eyebrows almost imperceptibly, but Holden caught the surprise in his expression. “You show up every three weeks with a half-assed proposition like you don’t give a shit whether I say yes or not. I figured you just got bored of jerking off and I was… convenient.” 

“You’re stupid,” Amos said, though there was no anger in it, only a slight sadness that went away near instantly. “I could never get bored of jerking off. I’m very creative.” Holden had been hoping for a confession more substantive than that. 

“I’m sure you are,” said Holden. 

“‘Sides, ain’t nothing convenient about fucking you. And you’re a lot nicer in my spank-bank.. And more flexible. Taller.” Holden breathed a short laugh at the jab, then processed the admission in Amos’s words.

“You think about me when you masturbate?” 

“No,” Amos backtracked. “Shut up.” Holden smiled at the lie. 

“I do, too,” Holden admitted. “Think about you.” Amos looked confused. 

“You jerk off?” 

“That surprises you?” 

“You got a girlfriend you can stick your dick in, don’t you?” Holden didn’t like that. He never fucked Naomi when he was longing for Amos. She was never a consolation prize. 

“She’s a person, not a glory hole.” 

“I know that. Guess I’m just surprised you’re horny enough to have two sex partners and still jerk off.” 

“Don’t ever underestimate how horny you make me. Plus, I only get you every couple of weeks.” 

“I tried to wait a month. Got impatient, most times.” 

“Why wait?” 

“Thought maybe you’d ask,” Amos said, his eyes shifting forlornly downward. “You never did.” Holden’s heart sunk from his stomach to his toes. Holden had been waiting in want, wishing every day for weeks that Amos would show up with one of his lame, objectifying propositions, so that Holden would be allowed just a couple of minutes of the man’s time. All along, as Holden yearned, Amos had been waiting patiently for him to take his turn and make a move. 

“I wanted to. I want this.”

“Yeah, apparently,” Amos said, with a pointed look down to Holden’s cock, which was softening, but still half-hard. “Don’t want you to jerk off thinkin’ about me. If you’re horny thinkin’ about me, you tell me, okay? I ain’t waitin’ around for you to stop being a moron.” 

“Okay,” Holden agreed. 

“Okay.” 

A little while passed, Amos’s nudity at the forefront of Holden’s mind, as he worked up the courage to just fucking say something. He had permission, assurance that his attraction to Amos was allowed and encouraged. He had precedent. He remembered the taste of Amos’s lips and craved to etch it into his mind forever. There was nothing keeping him from straddling Amos’s thighs and taking what he craved. Amos looked meaningfully at him, but initiated nothing. Holden knew Amos wanted him to make the first move. He took a deep breath, and did. 

“Hey, Amos?” 

“Yeah, Holden?” 

“I’m horny thinkin’ about you.” 

“S’that right?” Amos asked, like it wasn’t obvious. “What do you plan on doin’ about that?” 

“Whatever you want,” he said, like a plea. Amos seemed dissatisfied with that. 

“Come sit in my lap.” 

“Want me to ride you?” 

“No. Just sit. Be a good boy and maybe I’ll put my cock in you.” 

“I’m not your dog,” Holden insisted, not for the first time or even the second in all their time together. Amos looked at him for a second, no specific expression on his face, and Holden didn’t need any further prompting. 

“Obedient, anyway,” Amos remarked smugly as Holden’s knees found their rightful places on either side of his lap. Amos secured him in place with hands on his hips. “Do you remember the first time we fooled around?” he asked. 

“How could I forget? I was hungover as shit and you came up out of nowhere, squeezed my ass, and said I would feel better if I let you suck me off.” 

“I believe I said you’d feel better with a nice, tight throat around your cock. You’re the one who assumed I meant mine.” 

“Did I assume incorrectly?”

“No. But shit, I can’t believe that worked. You’re such a slut, Cap,” he said, like that was news, even while palming Holden’s bare ass in his lap. 

“Yeah,” said Holden, meaning ‘duh.’ 

“Wasn’t out of nowhere, though. You remember the night before?” 

“I remember getting shit-faced, then waking up and regretting getting shit-faced. So no.” Amos just hummed. “Why, did we do something?” Holden said, panic undoubtedly legible in his expression. 

“I didn’t take advantage. You wanted me to, though.” 

“Shit. What did I say?”

“Oh, a whole lot.” Holden’s embarrassment must’ve shown on his face, because Amos shook his head reassuringly. “You were cute. Alex and Naomi had gone to bed, but you stayed up drinking with me. Were trying to outdo me for a little while, bless your heart,” he pinched Holden’s cheek. “You were plastered. Got in my lap, just like this. Well, clothed.” 

Amos then recounted the entire ordeal, which started with Holden bouncing giddily like a child in Amos’s lap, and ended with him snoring on the man’s shoulder. In between, he confessed to desires he’d never admit aloud. 

“Right before you fell asleep, you said, and I quote, ‘I’m so lucky my best friend is the sexiest man in the whole universe,’” Amos recalled with a smile in his eyes. 

“You  _ are _ the sexiest man in the whole universe,” Holden insisted, the backs of his knuckles trailing softly over Amos’s jaw. Amos smiled slightly, but shook his head. 

“I don’t care about that part,” he said softly. “I don’t want to be the sexiest man in the whole universe. I want to be your best friend.” 

“You are.” 

If Holden had known that was all it would take to compel Amos to take his face in his hands and lay a long, passionate kiss on his lips, Holden would’ve called Amos his best friend a long time before. It was an easy truth to admit. Amos  _ was _ his best friend, and a whole deal more than that, too. 

Amos moved Holden onto his back with the ease of laying down a beach towel. As Amos pushed his legs up to his chest and laid kisses on the undersides of his thighs, Holden wondered for only a moment if he should feel emasculated by the difference in their size and strength. He did not. He felt only aroused by the brute power of Amos, endeared by the way he wielded that strength as gentle firmness as he worked his hands over Holden’s exposed skin. Holden scolded himself for the millionth time for not letting this happen sooner, then his mind went blank as he shuddered under Amos’s breath. When Amos licked him, a long languid pass of a flat tongue over his hole, it was everything Holden had ever fantasized about in the shower, and more. 

“You like that?” Amos asked. Holden dismissed it as mindless porn dialogue, meaningless words to fill the pregnant air between them. But then Amos looked at him, wide eyes meeting wide eyes, and it was clear he was looking for an answer. Even as Holden shuddered underneath him, overcome by the pleasure and visibly so, Amos needed reassurance that he was doing the right thing. Holden allowed him that comfort. 

“Fuck, yes,” Holden breathed. As he let himself ramble, confessions were made. “Always dream about your tongue in me. Want this more than anything in the world.” Amos’s laugh was felt against his sensitive rim, as the gust of breath cooled the slickness there. Holden’s body tensed all over at the sensation, and he dreaded the loss of Amos’s mouth on his hole, though he loved the sound of his voice as he spoke. There was just about nothing Amos could do that wouldn’t make his toes curl. 

“You want my tongue in your asshole more than anything in the world?” Amos repeated back, his voice a tone of playful disbelief. 

“I mean, maybe, like, world peace first, but a close second,” Holden joked sheepishly. Amos’s laugh was gentle as his nose nuzzled behind Holden’s balls, and then there was no more talking. 

Amos licked Holden like he kissed him, with a hungry passion and something Holden might call reverence. When Amos reached into the drawer of his bedside table, Holden shivered in anticipation and spread his legs further. Holden never ceased to be surprised by the thickness of Amos’s fingers as they pressed inside him, one knuckle after the other until he was impaled on a massive digit. Amos moved slower, gentler than he usually did, leaving kisses on his clavicle and neck as he worked Holden open one finger at a time until he was reduced to a pile of whimpers and pleas. 

Holden noticed the way Amos tracked his reactions, watched carefully with intense eyes like waiting for the moment Holden would stop enjoying the way his fingers felt. Holden didn’t know if that was how Amos always acted in bed, a consequence of the insecurity Holden knew he had in his relationships, or if Holden’s previous callousness had conditioned Amos to worry that he wasn’t having a good time. Amos always looked to Holden to decipher what was right and what was wrong, maybe this was no different. He wanted to reassure Amos, but didn’t have the words to vocalize how right it felt to be stuffed so full. Instead, he laced his fingers through the short cropping of hair on Amos’s head and let himself moan luxuriously as a third finger intensified his pleasure. 

“That feels so fucking good,” Holden said aloud, and watched as some tension fell from Amos’s bones. “You always feel so fucking good.” Amos placed a tender kiss in the space where Holden’s neck met his shoulder, then looked up at him with lidded eyes and full, bitten lips. Holden kissed him, mouthed an inaudible plea into his lips. Amos didn’t break that connection as he pressed the head of his cock to Holden’s ready hole, only kissed deeper as Holden stretched around him. 

Amos’s cock felt somehow bigger than usual. It had been a long time since Holden let a man fuck him from the front, the supine position with his knees to his chest demanding a vulnerability he was rarely willing to offer. He’d forgotten the intensity of being taken in that way. Holden reached for Amos’s hand and squeezed it tightly as he grew accustomed to the pressure that overwhelmed him. His eyes threatened to fall closed a number of times, but Holden didn’t let them. Instead, he watched, entranced by the contortion of Amos’s musculature, mesmerized by the slow, slick slide of Amos’s cock moving in and out of him. Every nerve-ending in his body lit up like a torch, his blood pumping through his veins like speeding lava. He likened it to recreational drug use— an out-of-body experience and a newfound oneness with himself, and somehow both at the same time. He was high on the feeling of Amos breaking him open, physically and emotionally. 

He didn’t know when his eyes had dared to shut, but he opened them once more, drinking in the sight of Amos anew. Amos was grinding into him, stealing kisses when the breaks in their panting allowed for it. His skin was graced with a patina of sweat, reflecting the dim overhead lighting like he was glowing. Between the gorgeous view and the intense feeling deep inside himself, Holden was so overcome with pleasure he thought he’d finish untouched. He didn’t have to find out, as Amos wrapped a massive hand around the base of his cock and stroked him to completion, coaxing ropes of come to fall over his chiseled abs. 

“Can I finish inside you?” Amos asked, peering up through his eyelashes. Holden was thrown off by the question. Amos had come inside him half a dozen times before with no regard for whether or not he had permission. 

“Please,” he said, ignoring his instinct to say  _ ‘obviously.’ _

“No time to shower before dinner,” warned Amos, and that explained it. Holden had no intention of showering away this feeling. 

“Guess I’ll be eating mushroom soup and wearing your jizz, then,” Holden quipped. 

“Alex might get suspicious if you smell like my jockstrap.” Holden took a minute with the fantasy of Amos’s round ass in a jockstrap before answering. 

“Let him,” Holden said. Amos’s expression became serious. 

“You don’t care if he finds out?”

“I’ve got nothing to hide.” Amos didn’t give away his feelings on the matter, but he pulled Holden into a passionate kiss and pressed deep inside him. His hips shifted and canted at a new angle, and the shortness of Amos’s breaths signaled to Holden he was close to coming. Holden let his eyes fall closed and leaned into the sensations, allowed himself to feel used and loved in equal measure. Watching Amos come was like performance art. Feeling it inside himself was a wonder of nature. 

When Amos laid down next to him, satisfied in his post-orgasm haze, Holden curled up to his side. After a moment’s hesitation, Amos put his arm around him. Holden didn’t know how much time passed with no words exchanged between them as he silently reveled in Amos’s embrace. He wished he could stop time and live in the sensation forever. The Purgatory he once dreaded— the moments after sex when they drifted aimlessly between friends and lovers— was suddenly more akin to a picnic. 

He was at peace. 


	6. Chapter 6

Amos eventually broke the amicable silence. 

“Can’t believe you let me hit that twice in a day, shit. Gonna spoil me,” Amos said with a hard squeeze of Holden’s asscheek. 

“Not if you refer to fucking my ass as ‘hitting that,’ I won’t,” rebutted Holden, the first half of the sentence muffled as he spoke into Amos’s underarm. He could hardly be bothered to leave the comfort of his face pressed into Amos’s skin long enough to speak clearly. 

“Sorry. I can’t believe you let me smash twice in one day. Better?” he asked with a smile that feigned innocence. Holden rolled his eyes, and placed a kiss on the part of Amos’s body nearest his own lips, which ended up being close to his shoulder. 

“No,” Holden scolded, “but you can  _ smash _ whenever you want to. I’m yours.” Amos just hummed happily and kissed his temple, which Holden chose to interpret as some version of agreement. He didn’t expect Amos to say anything as cheesy as ‘I’m yours’ back, but a head kiss was more than tender enough. If anything, it was more honest than words. 

“Did you mean it when you said you want to tell Alex?” Amos asked. 

“I wouldn’t say I’m looking forward to the conversation, but I’m not ashamed,” Holden insisted. Amos didn’t appear to welcome the gesture.

“Do you want to tell him to prove you’re not ashamed, or do you want to tell him because you think he should know?” 

“I’m not trying to prove anything. You know I prefer to have everything out in the open. But I also know sometimes that instinct gets me in trouble, so I don’t know.”

“I can think of a few examples of that, yeah,” Amos murmured. 

“There’s a very real possibility that telling him makes things very awkward. It might be more selfish than honest.”

“So we shouldn’t tell him,” Amos said, and Holden didn’t know if it was a decision or a question. Holden treated it like a question. 

“Maybe not. But then again, if he finds out in a couple of months or years, he might be hurt we didn’t tell him sooner. Besides, I don’t want to have to sneak into the machine shop to get kissed by you.” 

“So we should tell him,” Amos said, with the same ambiguous inflection. 

“My vote’s yes. But if you don’t want to, secret’s safe with me.” 

“My vote’s always with yours, Cap.” 

Holden contorted to kiss him on the lips, then maneuvered himself on his hands and knees over Amos’s body to deepen the connection. There was something meaningfully different about kissing Amos with no ulterior motive, no expectation of sexual release. They were just two guys who liked each other, kissing because they liked kissing each other. Holden smiled with his eyes closed, a contented little expression like a kitten getting its head scratched. Amos broke the spell by reminding Holden that there were other people in the universe. “So we’re gonna tell him.” 

“It doesn’t have to be, like, some capital-C Conversation. We can just stop hiding it.” 

“You mean I can fuck you in the galley instead of the shop?”

“No.” 

“Worth a shot. Okay. We’ll tell him.” 

####  ★ ★ ★

“Where have you two been all day? I haven’t seen either of you in hours,” Alex pointed out when they arrived at the galley table. Naomi and Alex were already sitting down, and neglected bowls of soup sat cooling in Holden and Amos’s place settings. 

“Fucking,” Amos said casually as he sat down, then immediately moved to gorge himself on the warm broth. “This is good,” he said of the soup, paying no mind to the unreadable look Naomi was giving, the blush of Holden’s cheeks, or the liquid falling from Alex’s startled mouth. 

“Amos!” Holden scolded. Amos looked confused.

“You said we were going to tell him,” he said innocently.

“You can’t possibly think I meant we were going to tell him like _ that,”  _ Holden rebuked. He looked at Naomi with something of an apology in his eyes, though she seemed more amused than anything. He realized in hindsight that should’ve asked her advice on how to approach telling Alex. Or her opinion on telling Alex at all. 

Amos rolled his eyes. 

“Right. You were going to be all like,” he spoke in a mockingly-stern, pitched-down voice, “Alex, we have something to tell you. I know this will come as a surprise to you, and you have every right to have feelings about it, but Amos and I are sleeping together. I hope this won’t interfere with our blah-blah-bullshit-blah-blah.” His impression of Holden’s voice was lacking, but the words were more-or-less spot on. 

“I hate that that’s not far off from what I was planning to say,” Holden almost pouted.

“Alex is a grown-up, aren’t you, Martian? You can handle knowing I put my dick in the captain every once in a while.” 

“I’ve been handling it for a couple months now. Just don’t know if I can handle hearing about it,” Alex said. Holden looked surprised. Amos looked nonchalantly at his bowl, another spoonful of soup successfully landing in his stomach as he went after another. 

“You knew?” Holden asked. 

“You’re not subtle,” Alex said. “Amos looks at you like you hung the moon and colonized it, and you look at him like you’re sad he’s not lookin’ at you back. Besides, the machine shop ain’t the private space you seem to think it is, and you’re louder than a rodeo in a marble tent.” Holden felt stupid for a moment, learning that both Naomi and Alex knew of Amos’s feelings all along and Holden didn’t, but any negativity about it dissipated immediately. He was simply happy to be reminded that Amos had feelings for him all this time. Holden offered a half assed apology with his eyes. “Didn’t expect you to ever tell me about it, though. Think I owe Naomi scrip.”

“Damn straight you do,” she said with a smirk. Holden looked to her for an elaboration, and she shrugged with her hands. “I knew Jim Holden couldn’t go too long without telling the truth. The world’s most annoying virtue.” The insult was delivered with a loving smile, and Holden had little ground to defend himself. 

“I’m never telling any of you anything ever again,” Holden pouted. 

“Thank God,” said Alex. 

They spared Alex the details of their arrangement, and the conversation quickly turned to something a little more family friendly. Naomi told a joke Drummer had heard on Medina, that only sort of translated to English. The group laughed anyway, mainly at the way Naomi couldn’t stop laughing as she recalled it. Alex drawled on about an old show from his childhood that he insisted the others  _ had _ to have seen, and they nodded and smiled at the references even as they didn’t get them. Holden told a story from his childhood that was as endearing as it was completely unrelatable to all, even Amos, who insisted that the Earth Holden grew up on was not the Earth Amos knew. He didn’t elaborate further, and no one asked him to. He enjoyed the conversation in silence as he ate like watching a show. 

As they laughed together, it was clear as ever that the four of them didn’t need a shared history to enjoy sharing the present. 

Amos helped himself to a second bowl soup and devoured it loudly. No one would know from his directionless gaze that his toes were teasing at Holden’s ankle across the table.  _ He wants to feel close to you,  _ Holden recalled Naomi saying.  _ Connected.  _

Holden put his hand over Amos’s, right on the table where anyone could see. Amos looked up at him and smiled. Holden was far from ashamed. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> send me an ask and-they-were-crewmates.tumblr.com  
> sometimes I post ficlets there that don't make it to AO3 because they are too short or because I wrote them while drunk but they're available at and-they-were-crewmates.tumblr.com/tagged/my-ficlet


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